Sand Creek Massacre Memorial - finally

[cloudy]

Memorial opens.

For those who don't know the history, the Sand Creek Massacre was one of the most horrible actions by the US Military, and triggered yet more death, including the slaughter of Custer and his troops at Little Bighorn.

The account of what happened in Dee Brown's book is from survivors, and brings me to tears every time I read it. Here is an excerpt:

Robert Bent, who was riding unwillingly with Colonel Chivington, said that when they came in sight of the camp, "I saw the American flag waving and heard Black Kettle tell the Indians to stand around the flag, and there they were huddled - men, women and children. This was when we were within fifty yards of the Indians. I also saw a white flag raised. These flags were in so conspicuous a position that they must have been seen. When the troops fired, the Indians ran, some of the men into their lodges, probably to get their arms...I think there were six hundred Indians in all. I think there were thirty-five braves and some old men, about sixty in all...the rest of the men were away from camp, hunting. After the firing, the warriors put the squaws and children together, and surrounded them to protect them. I saw five squaws under a bank for shelter. When the troops came up to them they ran out and showed their persons to let the soldiers know they were squaws and begged for mercy, but the soldiers shot them all.

"I also heard of numerous instances in which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddles-bows and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks."

Medicine Calf Beckwourth, riding beside Colonel Chivington, saw White Antelope approaching. "He came running out to meet the command," Beckwourth later testified, "holding up his hands and saying "Stop! Stop!' He spoke it in as plain English as I can. He stopped and folded his arms until he was shot down." (one of the saddest witness accounts tells of how White Antelope had tears running down his face when he was shot - he believed until he died that the treaty he'd signed, and the peace he'd kept, would keep his people, his family, safe)

From the direction of the Arapaho camp, Left Hand and his people also tried to reach Black Kettle's flag. When Left Hand saw the troops, he stood with his arms folded, saying he would not fight the white men because they were his friends. He was shot down.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/f/f7/X-32034.jpg

 

[Misty_Morning]

Just an observation...why does the memorial call it a "Battle Ground?"

Seems like it is only a half recognition.

 

[cloudy]

Just an observation...why does the memorial call it a "Battle Ground?"

Seems like it is only a half recognition.

I believe that's the old marker. The memorial just opened, and I couldn't find a pic of it.

 

[FatDino]

I believe that's the old marker. The memorial just opened, and I couldn't find a pic of it.

So the clowns have finally learned to say "I'm sorry" instead of just waving their hands.

 

[cloudy]

So the clowns have finally learned to say "I'm sorry" instead of just waving their hands.

maybe. I'm reserving judgment, but it's a step in the right direction.

 

[FatDino]

maybe. I'm reserving judgment, but it's a step in the right direction.

One can only hope. *nods knowingly*

 

[glynndah]

Why is it that one of the first lessons we teach our children:"say you're sorry when you do something wrong" takes our governent so long to learn?

 

[FatDino]

Why is it that one of the first lessons we teach our children:"say you're sorry when you do something wrong" takes our governent so long to learn?

You forget that most of them are clowns, that's why.

 

[Guest]

 

[rgraham666]

Why is it that one of the first lessons we teach our children:"say you're sorry when you do something wrong" takes our governent so long to learn?

It isn't just the government. It's everybody in a position of power.

Their power depends on they're being right all the time. Therefore they can't be in error.

 

[feeeriek]

 

[cloudy]

*bump*

 

[Chantilyvamp]

I could never read anything about that without crying.

 

[neonlyte]

Nice to see them making an effort.

I travelled from Saratoga Springs to Niagra on my recent visit. Can't remember the name of the river (a tributary of the Hudson?) but it ran through Iraquoi country. We even stopped at the Iraquoi reststop on the interstate. It's marked by McDonalds or one of the other chains. No mention of the history... not unless the the 'tee-pee' styled winter road salt stores were it.

That was bleak country. It was the end of winter, there had been a lot of rain and snow lay in the shade of back hedges and amongst the trees bordering the interstate. Living there must have been challenging, more like survival from some of the documents I read at the Museum of the American Indian. I'd never realised how small the communities were, though I was mostly reading about Southern/Mexican tribes whose problems were different. Living through the northern winters must have been a daunting prospect, it is impossible to imagine their difficulties. Then they met 'us'.

 

[jomar]

.......

 

[R. Richard]

A terrible thing, Cloudy. However, you left out the worst part. None of the people responsible for the massacre were ever brought to justice. There were hearings that condemned what had been done, but none of the people in command were ever punished.

Lest people think that it was just a small band of soldiers in the field who got out of control, there were written orders to slaughter the Amerinds with no prisoners. The orders came from well up the ranks. It is appaling.

 

[cloudy]

Back in Denver after the defeat of the Confederacy's Western forces, Chivington seemed destined for prominence. He was a leading advocate of quick statehood for Colorado, and the likely Republican candidate for the state's first Congressional seat. In the midst of his blossoming political prospects, tensions between Colorado's burgeoning white population and the Cheyenne Indians reached a feverish pitch. The Denver newspaper printed a front-page editorial advocating the "extermination of the red devils" and urging its readers to "take a few months off and dedicate that time to wiping out the Indians."

Chivington took advantage of this dangerous public mood by blasting the territorial governor and others who counseled peace and treaty making with the Cheyenne. In August of 1864, he declared, "the Cheyennes will have to be roundly whipped -- or completely wiped out -- before they will be quiet. I say that if any of them are caught in your vicinity, the only thing to do is kill them." A month later, while addressing a gathering of church deacons, he dismissed the possibility of making a treaty with the Cheyenne: "It simply is not possible for Indians to obey or even understand any treaty. I am fully satisfied, gentlemen, that to kill them is the only way we will ever have peace and quiet in Colorado."

The following is from "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" written by Dee Brown:

"On the morning of November 29, 1864, 600 Cheyenne and Arapahos camped on a bend of Sand Creek were awakened by the sound of charging hooves. Two thirds of these 600 were women and children as the government granted able bodied men to go east and hunt buffalo to feed their hungry families. Only 35 braves were in the camp. This made the ensuing charge all the more frightening for the women, children, elders, and remaining braves.

So great was the fear of the coming charge that men, women, and children ran from their lodges into the biting cold taking no time to fully dress. The partially dressed Indians began to gather under a huge American flag above Black Kettles lodge (Black Kettle was given the huge American flag and peace medals by Abraham Lincoln and Colonel A. B. Greenwood in Washington only a year earlier and was told that as long as the American flag was above them, no one would be harmed). The braves present surrounded the women and children gathered under the flag. At 8:00 am more than 700 cavalry men under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington and Major Scott J. Anthony, rode in and fired on the huddled Indians from two directions. After the initial charge the US soldiers dismounted and continued the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children. During the killing unspeakable atrocities and mutilations were committed by the soldiers. Accounts from two white men, John S. Smith and Lieutenant James Connor, described the acts of dehumanization."

According to John S. Smith, Colonel Chivington knew these Indians to be peaceful before the massacre. Smith witnessed, as did helpless Indian mothers and fathers, young children having their sex organs cut away. U.S. soldiers mutilated Native American women, cutting away their breasts and removing all other sex organs. After the Massacre, soldiers displayed the women's severed body parts on their hats and stretched them over their saddle-bows while riding in the ranks. The sex organs of every male were removed in the most grotesque manner. One soldier boasted that he would make a tobacco pouch with the removed privates of White Antelope, a respected elder. Conner witnessed a soldier displaying the body parts of a woman on a stick. The fingers of Indians were cut off to get at the rings on them. Connor remembered a baby only a few months old who had been hidden in the feed box of a wagon for protection. When the soldiers discovered the baby some time later, the baby was thrown onto the frozen ground to die. In going over the site the next day, it was noted that every corpse was mutilated in some way, and scalped.

Two other men, Robert Bent and James Beckwourth were forced to ride with Chivington that morning. They recorded similar images. Beckwourth noted that before the massacre, White Antelope (age 75) ran out to meet the soldiers. He came running out to meet the command, holding up his hands and saying Stop! Stop! He spoke in as plain English as I can. He stopped and folded his arms until shot down. Bent remembered seeing the shooting of a little girl carrying a white flag. He also remembered seeing an Indian woman on the ground whose leg had been shattered by a shell. As she lay helpless, a soldier drew his saber, breaking the arm she had risen in defense. She then rolled over on her other side. The soldier did not leave until breaking her other arm with his saber, whereupon he left without killing her. Bent saw a pregnant woman who had been cut open and disemboweled. Her unborn child lay mutilated almost beyond human recognition beside her. Quite a number of mothers were slain; still clinging to their babies. Such was the scene that cold gray morning at Sand Creek, November 29, 1864.

Chivington was at first widely praised for the "battle" at Sand Creek, and honored with a widely attended parade through the streets of Denver just two weeks after the massacre. Soon, however, rumors of drunken soldiers butchering unarmed women and children began to circulate, and at first seemed confirmed when Chivington arrested six of his men and charged them with cowardice in battle. But the six, who included Captain Silas Soule, a personal friend of Chivington's who had fought with him at Glorietta Pass, were in fact militia members who had refused to participate in the massacre and now spoke openly of the carnage they had witnessed. Shortly after their arrest, the U.S. Secretary of War ordered the six men released and Congress began preparing for a formal investigation of Sand Creek.

Soule himself could not be a witness at any of the investigations, because less than a week after his release he was shot from behind and killed on the streets of Denver. Although Chivington was eventually brought up on court-martial charges for his involvement in the massacre, he was no longer in the U.S. Army and could therefore not be punished. No criminal charges were ever filed against him. An Army judge, however, publicly stated that Sand Creek was "a cowardly and cold-blooded slaughter, sufficient to cover its perpetrators with indelible infamy, and the face of every American with shame and indignation."

Although he was never punished for his role at Sand Creek, Chivington did at least pay some price. He was forced to resign from the Colorado militia, to withdraw from politics, and to stay away from the campaign for statehood. In 1865 he moved back to Nebraska, spending several unsuccessful years as a freight hauler. He lived briefly in California, and then returned to Ohio where he resumed farming and became editor of a small newspaper. In 1883 he re-entered politics with a campaign for a state legislature seat, but charges of his guilt in the Sand Creek massacre forced him to withdraw. He quickly returned to Denver and worked as a deputy sheriff until shortly before his death from cancer in 1892.

 

[Fallenfromgrace]

Wow.

I know *nothing* about this sort of thing.

 

[cloudy]

Thanks, all. I don't come from the Cheyenne or the Arapaho, but their stories and ours are parallels, pretty much.

Grace: pick up a copy of Dee Brown's book. It's eye-opening, to say the least. Any other questions you have, please feel free to ask.

 

[rgraham666]

There's a special corner of Hell for people like Colonel Chivington.

 

[R. Richard]

There's a special corner of Hell for people like Colonel Chivington.

Yes, and there should have been a special courts martial for the General who ordered Col. Chivington to 'kill Indians.' However, the scumbags look after their own.

 

[cloudy]

Yes, and there should have been a special courts martial for the General who ordered Col. Chivington to 'kill Indians.' However, the scumbags look after their own.

R.Richard, there is no proof anywhere that anyone ordered Chivington to do anything. It may well have been ordered by someone else, but all proof says that this was something Chivington undertook on his own.

I despise the way natives were treated here, however I also have a healthy respect for the truth, whether it shows either side in a poorer light.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Why is it that one of the first lessons we teach our children:"say you're sorry when you do something wrong" takes our governent so long to learn?

Saying you are sorry is an admission of being wrong. Government officials will NEVER admit to being wrong. That includes DA's, judges, mayors, police chiefs, members of Congress, the president, and any other person who has a position of any authority.

 

[R. Richard]

R.Richard, there is no proof anywhere that anyone ordered Chivington to do anything. It may well have been ordered by someone else, but all proof says that this was something Chivington undertook on his own.

I despise the way natives were treated here, however I also have a healthy respect for the truth, whether it shows either side in a poorer light.

Sorry Cloudy. I remembered that some one had sent Col. Chivington to 'quiet' the Indians. Territorial Governor John Evans did send Col. Chivington to 'quiet' the Indians, but that was some time before the Sand Creek massacre. I must stop relying upon my memory in cases like this and look things up.

 

[moonlight elf]